


dancing with a stranger

by leetheshark



Category: IT (1990), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bisexual Richie Tozier, Canon-Typical Memory Loss, Food, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, M/M, Mention of Parent Death, Mentions of Abusive Parent, Mentions of drugs, One Night Stand, Sexual Trauma, Trauma Flashback, Unhealthy Thoughts About Food, Virgin Eddie Kaspbrak, almost canon compliant, offscreen sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 17:22:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leetheshark/pseuds/leetheshark
Summary: Fourteen years after leaving Derry with his mother, twenty-five year old Eddie Kaspbrak doesn’t get out much. When he sees a flyer for a comedy show in New York City, starring up-and-coming disc jockey and stand-up comic Richie “Voices” Tozier, something draws him to the show and to Richie Tozier himself.





	dancing with a stranger

**Author's Note:**

> this exists as a product of my thirst for young [dennis christopher](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIRC3l9W4AAuU7W?format=jpg&name=900x900) & [harry anderson](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIUY1TgXkAA_OoP?format=jpg&name=large).
> 
> based on the 1990 miniseries, with some things from the book. title is from sam smith & normani’s [dancing with a stranger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av5JD1dfj_c).

Some days, Eddie takes the train into the city from Great Neck.

It takes half an hour, and he keeps himself busy with a paperback or the New York Times crossword. He runs errands for Sonia and for the business, rattling down overcrowded sidewalks with the pills he never leaves home without and some seasonal ones, too (and his aspirator, always his aspirator). He brings lunch from home because of his allergies, and when the weather is good—good enough that he won’t catch a sunburn or a cold or his mother’s wrath after either of those—he buys a coffee and eats his lunch in Bryant Park before walking back to Penn Station.

That’s where he sees the flyer, stuck up on a street corner telephone pole and rustling softly in the new autumn breeze.

**Richie “Voices” Tozier**  
**From Los Angeles’ KLAD**  
**One Night Only in New York City**  
**Starry Night Comedy Club October 24th, 1975 7 pm**

The guy on the flyer’s wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a smartmouthed smile, and something about him makes Eddie quirk his head and stare. With knitted brows he reads the flyer again and then rips it from the pole, shoving it in his jacket pocket. He has to keep it from Sonia, but he doesn’t think that will stop him from going. He’ll have to come up with a lie, but he’s done that before (he feels guilty about it, but not enough to stop). And he’ll go, because he doesn’t ever go to things like this, but for some reason, he wants to.  


* * *

  
Eddie sits at the bar alone, nursing a gin and tonic. He’s fresh-faced and quiet, bundled up in a button-down, sweater vest, and jacket. No one pays attention to him, and he likes that just fine. The bar looks like it could have failed its last health inspection, and Eddie tries not to think about it too hard.

When Eddie drinks at home (which is rare), he goes for gin and prune juice, but when he asked for it the old bartender balked at him until he came up with something else. He paid in cash because running a tab made him nervous—what if he forgets to pay? what if the police come after him?—and he’s still on his first drink when the opening acts start.

When Eddie’s watch marks an hour since he started his first drink, he orders a second. He’s pacing himself, one drink an hour, so he doesn’t get too drunk. He holds his glass loosely in spindly fingers as he watches the opening comedians, mostly bored, and it reminds him why he doesn’t usually go out.

But when Richie Tozier walks on stage, Eddie perks up instantly. He’s tall and charming in a gray suit over a white t-shirt, clean-shaven with a fedora and glasses that remind Eddie of Buddy Holly. _Wow,_ Eddie thinks, _Buddy Holly, what a blast from the past._ He thinks maybe he knew someone who liked Buddy Holly, who looked up to him, but the thought is gone nearly as soon as it comes.

“How are we doing tonight, Los Angeles?” With an exaggerated pause, Richie puts a finger to his ear like someone’s talking to him through an earpiece. “Sorry, guys, _sorry._ How are we doing tonight, _New Jersey?_”

That gets a few scattered laughs and boos, and a smile from Eddie. Richie goes on with his set, starting off with a voice he calls Buford Kissdrivel, and Eddie gets the passing feeling he’s heard it before. He wonders if Richie’s been on TV. He’s better than his opening acts for sure, and Eddie finds himself laughing harder than he has in a while.

A name comes into Eddie’s head, except it’s not really a name, even though it feels like one. It’s _Trashmouth,_ and Eddie feels privately guilty, because it sounds rude.

_Richie Trashmouth Tozier._

Eddie feels something click into place, and it brings bad feelings, so he drinks some more and tamps it back down. He forgets within minutes, and before he knows it, he’s laughing into his drink again. He’s pretty sure he’s laughing harder than anyone else, but he’s happy for once, so he doesn’t care.

Richie’s voices aren’t incredible, but they’re pretty good. After Buford Kissdrivel, he does a voice called Wyatt the Homicidal Bag-Boy, an uncanny impression of JFK, and one he calls Kinky Briefcase, Sexual Accountant. That last one has Eddie blushing down into his drink.

He’s on stage for an hour, and it’s over too soon. When he walks off stage, Eddie almost feels like chasing after him, but what would he do then? What could he do?

He’s resigning himself back to the loneliness he’s felt every day for years when someone slides onto the barstool next to him and asks, “This seat taken?”

Eddie glances up and nearly startles. “Oh! You’re…”

“Richie Tozier,” he says, extending a hand.

“Eddie.” Eddie takes Richie’s hand, and the touch lights up his entire nervous system. “Kaspbrak.”

Richie glances at Eddie’s empty glass. “What are you drinking, Eddie Kaspbrak?”

“Gin and tonic.”

_“Garçon”_—Richie calls the bartender over with an obnoxious French accent—“Can I get a gin and tonic for the gentleman with the boyish good looks?” His hand lands on Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie gasps softly. He doesn’t remember the last time anyone touched him like this. “And a Guinness and some fries for myself, _per favore?"_

“Thanks,” Eddie squeaks. He’s not sure if he means for the compliment or the drink.

“No problem.” Richie leans an elbow on the bar, looking Eddie over. “How’d you like the show, sweetheart?”

Eddie licks his lips, a nervous habit, as the bartender slides him his new drink. “Well,” he says, with a shy smile. “It was worth the two bucks to get in.”

“They charge two bucks around here? Geez.” This close, Eddie can see that Richie’s right ear is pierced, and that he has a mole by the right corner of his mouth. “And I only get ten percent of it.”

“You deserve more,” Eddie gushes. “You were really good.”

“Aww. Thanks, Eddie.” Richie’s gaze slides from Eddie’s face to the counter as the bartender slides him a dark beer and a paper tray of fries. “Any chance I could get it on the house? Since, you know.” He quirks his head toward the now-empty stage, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Nope,” the bartender says, unimpressed.

Richie shrugs and slides a few bucks across the counter, then takes a swig of his beer and digs into his fries. It’s not that Eddie’s watching him on purpose; he’s tense and nervous and he doesn’t know where else to look, so he watches shyly as Richie shoves fries into his mouth one by one, coating his slender fingers in grease and salt and washing it down with beer. And then Richie notices and meets Eddie’s stare. Eddie looks down and away, and then looks back, to find Richie’s eyes still on him.

“You want one?” Richie nudges the paper tray toward Eddie with his finger. “Go ahead.”

It’s not the fries Eddie wants. Well—it’s not just the fries. He doesn’t normally eat things like this, but he’s curious, and he wants more than anything to accept Richie’s kind gesture. He thinks of what his mother would say—

_(you shouldn’t put such disgusting things in your body Eddie you shouldn’t eat so much grease or sodium Eddie you’ll die by the time you’re fifty)_

—and panic starts to well up, but he decides that if he’s going to sneak out of the house and have more than two drinks in a night, he might as well have one fry. One fry isn’t going to kill him.

He takes one delicately between his fingers and eats it in two bites, then wipes the salt and grease off his fingers on the napkin under his glass. Then, he licks the lingering salt from his lips and asks, “Do you like Buddy Holly?”

“How’d you know that?”

“Know what?”

Richie picks up a fry and gestures with it as he speaks. “I wanted to be a rock and roll singer when I was a kid, but I was always getting shit for my glasses. So I thought if he could do it, then so could I.”

“Did you?” Eddie asks.

“Nope.” Richie pops the fry into his mouth. “I DJ for a rock and roll station instead. And, you know, I do this, too. Things don’t always work out as we expect, my dear Eds. But I got a pretty good gig.”

Eddie’s brows knit together. “Did you just call me Eds?”

“I guess so. That a problem?”

“No,” Eddie says. His throat feels dry. He sips his gin and tonic. “Where are you from?”

“I live in L.A.,” Richie says, popping another fry into his mouth. And then he says, like he’s realizing it for the first time, “But I grew up in Maine.”

“That’s weird. I did, too.” It’s the first time Eddie’s thought about it in years.

“Yeah? What town?”

Eddie opens his mouth to say, but before the name comes to him, his throat starts to close up. He scrambles for his aspirator in his jacket pocket and, once he gets it between his lips, pushes the trigger down his throat. The question lies forgotten as Eddie desperately finds his breath, aspirator clutched loosely in both hands against the bartop.

“You got asthma?”

Eddie nods, still panting hard.

“Sorry to hear that, honey.” Richie’s hand inches across the counter. He rubs the knuckle of his index finger gently against the back of Eddie’s hand.

“It’s not too bad,” Eddie says, gently. “I’ve had it since I was a kid, so I’m used to it.”

Eddie drops his hand against the counter, palm up, and Richie’s fingers ghost over it. Something changes in Richie’s eyes then, like half a memory flickering before them. “You had asthma when you were a kid?”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes. “Why?”

“No reason.” Richie’s finger traces a straight line across Eddie’s palm, and the touch gives Eddie chills. “You just seem familiar.”

Eddie licks his lips. He wonders if anyone’s noticed Richie touching his hand. It probably looks like Richie’s reading his palm, like some kind of magic trick, instead of whatever this really is. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t usually go to things like this.”

“I could have guessed.”

“Really?”

Richie shrugs. “You look shy, is all.”

Eddie laughs softly. “I am. It’s just that I saw your picture,” he says, and he wonders if he’s saying too much, but he feels braver than he ever has in his life, “and I felt like I had to come see you.”

He’s blushing hard, and where his hand rests on the counter, Richie’s hand slides flush on top of it. “I get it,” Richie says. “I felt the same way when I saw you sitting over here.”

Eddie flounders. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Richie leans in close, and his breath on the shell of Eddie’s ear sends a tingle down Eddie’s spine. It’s sharp and sensitive in a way that almost hurts, and Eddie nearly moans. Richie whispers, “You want to come back to my hotel room?”

Eddie nearly has to use his aspirator again. He feels like he could drop dead on the spot. He nods, speechless, and relief washes over him when Richie leaves his personal space, because he wants it, _oh he wants it,_ but his heart is hammering hard and painful in his chest and he needs his space.

Richie quirks his head in the direction of the door. “It’s just a few blocks away,” he says. “You okay with walking?”

“Sure.” Eddie’s surprised that his voice isn’t shaking.

Richie nudges the tray of fries a little closer to Eddie. “Want to help me finish these?”

Eddie shoves his aspirator back into his jacket pocket. They finish the fries together and Eddie finishes his drink, and when he darts out his tongue to lick the salt off his lips, he catches Richie staring.

Richie clears his throat. “You good to get out of here?”

Eddie nods, and when Richie hops off his barstool, Eddie follows him across the club. Richie grabs his coat from the coat rack and slips it on, before holding the door open and letting Eddie go first. Eddie steps out onto the streetlit sidewalk, shivering as the late-night chill hits him.

“You cold?” Richie asks. He starts walking and Eddie falls into step beside him, zipping up his jacket.

“A little,” Eddie says. “I didn’t think I’d be out this late.”

“You haven’t got a girl waiting for you at home, have you?”

“My mother.”

“Eugh.”

Richie shrugs off his coat and, before Eddie can protest, drapes it over Eddie’s shoulders. Richie’s a good few inches taller than Eddie, and Eddie has to look up to meet his gaze. The streetlights glint off Richie’s thick glasses. Behind them, his eyes are a mossy green.

“Don’t worry about it,” Richie says preemptively, and he pats Eddie twice gently on the back, near enough to the small of his back that Eddie wonders if anyone else sees the intimate touch.

“Do you…” Eddie licks his lips as he thinks of what to say, and the cool air chills the moisture there. “Do you do this a lot?”

“Do what?” Richie has his hands in his pockets, and he’s looking ahead as he barges in just a suit jacket through the cold.

Eddie checks that no one is around before he whispers, “Sleep with men?”

“When they let me,” Richie replies, unbothered.

“What about women?”

“Sure.”

Eddie exhales, and he can see his breath in the cool air. If he’s lucky about one thing, it’s that Sonia doesn’t bother him about his lack of interest in women—

_(but imagine if she knew what you wanted instead)_

—and he shivers, but this time, not because of the cold. All things considered, he’s lucky that Sonia wouldn’t approve of him getting married, because he hangs onto any excuse he can not to. Eddie knows that he wouldn’t make a good husband, not to a woman, because thinking about those husbandly duties he might be expected to perform makes him shudder.

And yet he’s about to do _something_ with a man he barely knows and it’s so preposterously brave that Eddie can almost pretend it’s not himself doing it.

“You think you’ll end up getting married?” Eddie spouts.

“I already did,” Richie says. “Twice.”

“Oh.” The air rushes out of Eddie’s parted lips, and he keeps walking, noticing after a second that Richie isn’t beside him anymore. He turns his head, and Richie is opening the door to his hotel.

“You coming?”

Eddie nods, rushing into the building in silence.

“Don’t worry about it,” Richie says. “I’m single now.”

“Oh,” Eddie mutters. “Good.” He follows Richie through a small lobby to the elevator, and keeps his head down as he passes the front desk.

The elevator is barely spacious enough for the two of them, and the instant the doors close, Richie wraps his arms around Eddie’s waist. Hands flat on Richie’s lapels, Eddie arches his back to get closer, and Richie breathes, “You know I’ve been dying to kiss you all night?”

It sends lightning up Eddie’s spine. His shoulders tense, and his nervousness comes back in full force. “You have?”

“Since I got up on stage and saw you at the bar. You mind if I do it now?”

Eddie takes a breath, licks his lips, and says, “Go ahead.”

Richie leans in and presses his lips fully to Eddie’s, and it’s somehow better and stranger than Eddie imagined. He never knew how arousing a kiss could be, and the stirring in his body is brand new and frightening—Eddie’s been turned on before, sure, but this is _different._ He doesn’t know how to kiss and he hopes Richie doesn’t notice, and it’s a blissful and nerve-wracking few seconds before the elevator dings and the doors open, and Richie hurriedly pulls away.

After checking that no one’s around, Richie drapes his arm over Eddie’s shoulders and leads him down the hall. Eddie’s heart thunders in his ribcage with the soft thuds of his and Richie’s footfalls on the hallway carpet. He’s giddy from his first kiss and nervous all the same—

_(what if Richie hurts him? what if he gets a disease? what if he gets syphilis? what if Sonia finds out?)_

—and he reaches reflexively for his aspirator. But when Richie unlocks the door, when he looks down at Eddie with worlds of care in his eyes, he’s comforting and familiar in a way that doesn’t make a lick of sense, and Eddie wants him no matter what. Eddie doesn’t let himself want a lot of things, but he wants this.

Richie steps into the room, Eddie on his heels, and throws his hat and suit jacket onto the room’s chair. Eddie’s hungry eyes travel over his bare arms. “I know you’re probably not the type,” Richie says. “But I’ve got coke if you want it.”

“Um.” Eddie licks his lips. “No, thanks.” Eddie’s been around coke before—he’s been driving minor celebrities and parties for a few years now—so he’s not as freaked out as he could have been. It’s still not for him.

“Yeah, no problem.” Richie claps his hands together, then says, “Okay, I gotta piss. Make yourself at home?” He heads off to the bathroom, leaving Eddie alone in the unfamiliar hotel room.

Eddie shrugs off the two jackets—his own and Richie’s—and sets them down with Richie’s things. After a second thought, he digs through his jacket and takes out his aspirator, setting it on the nightstand in case he needs it. He sits on the edge of the bed and toys with the bottom hem of his sweater vest, thinking about taking it off. The promise of undressing for Richie, or undressing _in front of Richie,_ makes him nervous, but not aspirator-nervous. He decides against it. Instead, he takes off his shoes.

They trade off in the bathroom so that Eddie can wash his hands and splash water on his face. When he goes back into the room, he joins Richie on the edge of the bed, just as close as when they kissed in the elevator.

“Hey, good lookin’,” Richie says, smiling, voice low like it’s a secret.

Eddie buckles under the compliment. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face if he tried. “Hey,” he echoes.

One of Richie’s hands lands on Eddie’s knee, massaging it through his jeans. The other comes up to brush a blonde curl from Eddie’s forehead. Emboldened by Richie’s easy touching, Eddie shoots forward and presses his mouth to Richie’s, and Richie tilts his head so that the angle is just right. His mouth slots against Eddie’s, warm and lush, and the sweetness of it has Eddie keening softly as his hands move to clutch Richie’s shirt.

Richie breaks from Eddie’s lips to tug his shirt over his head and set his glasses on the nightstand, before pulling Eddie down onto the bed. Enraptured by the sight of Richie’s bare chest and stomach, Eddie tumbles on top of him, lips crashing into his again without delay.

Between kisses, Eddie raises a hesitant hand to Richie’s chest, fingers just brushing Richie’s skin, and he breathes, “Can I?”

Richie licks his lips. “Eds, babe, you can do whatever you want to me.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” Richie raises his eyebrows, playful. “Unless you’re into something real fucked up.”

Eddie grins. “I’m not.”

“Good,” Richie breathes, pulling Eddie down by his head to kiss him again.

Eddie’s hand moves over the swell of Richie’s breast, feeling over the tanned skin and soft hair of his chest. When he puts his hand in the right spot he can feel Richie’s heartbeat, and it’s strangely enthralling—if it didn’t already feel real, that Eddie was baring himself like this to a breathing, warm-blooded person—a breathing, warm-blooded man—it feels real now.

Richie’s hands move all over Eddie, feeling for his body beneath his button-down and sweater vest. Eddie keeps on kissing him, slowly gaining the confidence to explore his mouth. When Richie’s hands slide underneath Eddie’s layers to fit snug against his hips, Eddie gasps. Richie pulls Eddie flush against his body, and Eddie can feel _everything._

Anxious, Eddie breaks from Richie’s mouth, and a confession tumbles from his lips. “I’m a virgin.”

Eddie isn’t sure if Richie’s squinting up at him because he can’t see without his glasses, or if it’s because Eddie really screwed up by telling him that. But then Richie’s gaze softens, and Eddie exhales in relief. “That’s okay, baby,” Richie says, gentle. “We can take care of that. You sure you want to give it up to some guy you barely know?”

Eddie’s half explaining it to himself and half explaining it to Richie when he says, “I feel like I know you.”

“I feel like I know you, too,” Richie confesses. “Maybe we were lovers in a past life or something.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Maybe.” Eddie leans down and nudges Richie’s lips with his own, and Richie kisses them.

“So how’s no one snatched you up yet?”

Eddie feels deep down like there’s an answer to that—a reason he’s never fallen in love—but he knows it’ll hurt to look for it, so he doesn’t. Instead, he kisses Richie again, and Richie accepts that for an answer just fine.

“Now, I don’t mean to be ungentlemanly or anything.” Richie ducks out of the kiss and licks his lips. “But do you wanna take off your clothes?”

Eddie nods, wordless, and sits up to wrestle his sweater vest over his head. He tosses it away; he doesn’t care where it goes. As he undoes the buttons of his shirt with trembling fingers, he focuses on his working hands, because looking down at Richie might be too much. Eddie doesn’t think his body’s attractive like Richie’s, but when he shrugs out of his shirt and Richie’s appreciative gaze lands on his bared and heaving chest, the desire in Richie’s eyes knocks the breath out of him.

Eddie bends down again to press his forehead against Richie’s and asks, “How much can you see? Without your glasses?”

“Enough,” Richie breathes. His hands go to his fly and Eddie rolls off of him so he can slip off his slacks to reveal black briefs. They aren’t all he reveals, and with a shuddering breath, Eddie licks his lips. He follows suit, tries to ignore the insecurity creeping up his spine when he’s down to his striped boxers, and climbs back on top of Richie.

Richie pushes Eddie’s hair behind his ear, Eddie leaning into his touch, before trailing his fingers down the ticklish nape of Eddie’s neck and over his bare shoulder. Eddie inhales as Richie’s hand travels down his arm, raising goosebumps, and finally takes gentle hold of his wrist. Richie pulls Eddie’s hand to his mouth and presses a kiss into the knuckles, and when he lets go, Eddie’s fingers curl against his cheek. He can feel Richie’s late-night stubble, scratchy against his fingertips. “You’re pretty as hell,” Richie says, sappy-eyed.

Eddie didn’t think he could blush any more, but he does. “You too.”

“Mm, not like you, baby. No one’s pretty like you.”

Unused to the attention, Eddie puts his mouth on Richie’s to shut him up.

He melts against Richie’s body, skin against warm skin, sighing when Richie’s arms wind around his waist. When Richie’s thigh slides in between Eddie’s legs, it sends sparks shooting through Eddie’s body, so good Eddie almost can’t stand it, and Eddie gasps. Richie’s hands move down Eddie’s back, searing hot like he could leave handprints on Eddie’s skin—it feels like Richie’s leaving a mark on him everywhere, like he’ll never be the same after this.

“So—” Richie whispers, hands sliding past the small of Eddie’s back, fingers playing beneath the waistband of Eddie’s briefs, “—virgin, huh?”

“Huh?”

“Guess it’s up to me to make it worth your while.” One of Richie’s hands comes up to cup the back of Eddie’s head, fingers sliding through his hair. He tilts Eddie’s head so that he can press a delicate kiss to Eddie’s quivering jaw, and Eddie makes a soft, wordless noise. “What do you want?”

Eddie’s inexperience creeps up on him. “I don’t…” he gasps. Richie’s mouth plays across his jaw, then moves to his neck. “I don’t know.”

“I could blow you,” Richie says, darting out his tongue to lick a stripe across Eddie’s neck, and Eddie freezes. It knocks a memory to the front of Eddie’s mind.

_How bout a blowjob, Eddie?_

Gasping for air, Eddie scrambles away from Richie. “Unh…”

_Bobby does it for a dime, he will do it anytime, fifteen cents for overtime._

“What’s wrong?” Richie asks. “You need your aspirator?”

Eddie nods frantically before he can think of whether he really needs it, and once Richie gets it in his hands, he’s triggering it desperately down his throat. He clutches the aspirator close as he struggles to catch his breath. When he looks up at Richie again, it takes courage.

Eddie meets softened green eyes through the glasses Richie’s put back on. When Richie offers a tentative hand, Eddie puts his aspirator down in front of his crossed legs and takes it.

“I do something?”

Eddie shakes his head, and when he can speak, says, “No. I just… I think I just remembered something.”

Someone had said that to him…

Who said that to him? Was it even a person, or was it something else? If it was something else, then that’s okay, isn’t it? Because that means it couldn’t have been real?

Eddie’s still breathing hard as he comes down from his attack, and _oh he feels like a jerk,_ wasting Richie’s time like this, but he can’t. He can’t. ”I don’t think I want to do this right now,” he croaks. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Richie says, “that’s okay.” He holds out his other hand, and Eddie takes it, too. “That’s just fine, okay?” He’s looking hard into Eddie’s eyes, like he needs Eddie to believe him.

Eddie nods.

“You can leave if you want and I won’t be offended or nothing,” Richie says softly, rubbing his thumbs over Eddie’s knuckles. “But I’d like it if you stayed. Maybe we could find a movie on TV or something.”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes. His breath is starting to come normally, but his heart still thuds in his suddenly frail-seeming chest. Part of Eddie’s brain is telling him to run, some carried over instinct from, probably, whatever the hell he just remembered. But he won’t give in. He won’t run from Richie. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Richie opens his mouth to speak, thinks, and closes it again. After a minute, he asks, “Any chance a hug would help?”

Eddie shakes his head out of instinct, but when he remembers that Richie’s touch feels like no one else’s, he changes his mind and climbs into Richie’s embrace. He drops his face into the crook of Richie’s shoulder as Richie’s arms wind around him. He can’t remember the last time he’s been hugged like this. Sonia hugs him, but it isn’t like this. Eddie’s father’s hugs were so long ago that they’re gone from his mind completely. “Sorry about whatever you remembered,” Richie mumbles into Eddie’s hair.

“It’s okay,” Eddie sighs. “I don’t even know if it was real.”

“Yeah?” Richie squeezes Eddie a little tighter. “I get that sometimes, too.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“I don’t mind, honest. You want your clothes back?” Eddie sits back on his heels, and Richie fishes for his discarded shirt amongst the sheets and hands it over. “Or you could borrow something, if you want.”

“Could I borrow something?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” Richie reaches out to scratch Eddie’s scalp, comforting, and gets up to dig through his suitcase. After a few seconds, he a shirt tosses into Eddie’s lap. “How’s that?”

Eddie unfolds the shirt. It’s red and worn, with mottled white text across the chest that reads “STANFORD.” “Thank you,” Eddie says softly, as he pulls it over his head. It’s big enough on him that it comes down to his thighs and leaves him modest. “You went to Stanford?”

“Sure did. That’s how I got into radio.”

Richie doesn’t get dressed, but Eddie’s fine with that. When Richie climbs back into bed, Eddie moves to lay his head on Richie’s shoulder. “Can I?”

“Sure.” Richie ruffles Eddie’s hair, and Eddie likes it more than he expects to. He lays his head down and sinks into the comfort of Richie’s body, surprising himself with a yawn. “So how are you feeling, Eddie Spaghetti?”

An unexpected laugh bubbles up in Eddie’s throat. “What?”

“Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie repeats, like it’s dawning on him what he’s just said. “It rhymes.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess it does.” Eddie’s laugh fizzles away and he realizes, with another muted yawn, that it’s long past when he normally goes to bed. “I’m okay. Thank you.”

“Still want to watch a movie?” Eddie nods, and Richie gropes for the TV remote on the nightstand and offers it to him. “Your pick, Spaghetti Man.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie says, but his smile doesn’t falter.

He puts on a movie he’s seen before, and with the night he’s had, it doesn’t take long for Eddie to fall asleep in Richie’s arms, to the steady rhythm of Richie’s heartbeat.  


* * *

  
Eddie blinks his eyes open, surrounded by cool sheets and Richie and bedside-lamp darkness. It doesn’t take him long to remember where he is, doesn’t take him long to curl up against Richie and start to fall back to sleep in that sweet comfort of being near a warm body that Eddie's never known before. Richie’s eyes flutter open, dark eyelashes and lamplit green, and they lock with Eddie’s. Something wordless passes between them. Richie is close, and Eddie wants him closer.

Richie leans forward most of the way and Eddie closes the gap, capturing Richie’s lips and wasting no time deepening the kiss. Their legs are tangled, stomachs flush where Eddie’s borrowed shirt rides up. Eddie grasps at Richie, taking a handful of Richie’s thigh just beneath the curve of his ass. Eddie woke up hard, and he can feel that Richie is, too, when he rolls his hips desperately against Richie’s.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Richie gasps, breaking the kiss and pressing his forehead into Eddie’s.

“Yeah,” Eddie begs. “Yeah.”

“You sure you want to?”

Eddie licks his lips, and his tongue bumps Richie’s mouth. “I’m sure.”

Richie leans in, trails damp kisses up Eddie’s neck, and it’s so ticklish it hurts in the best way. He wrestles Eddie’s shirt off and Eddie lets him. “Do you have condoms?” Eddie pants.

“Sure,” Richie says. He has to untangle himself from Eddie’s hold to get them, leaving Eddie cold and lonely—but when he comes back, he makes it worth Eddie’s while.  


* * *

  
Eddie wakes up on the pillow of Richie’s chest, and when his tired eyes land on the blinking bedside alarm clock, the bright red numbers jolt him fully awake.

“Shit,” he hisses, scrambling over Richie’s body to sit up.

“Hey.” Richie’s sleepy voice makes Eddie want to stay more than anything—but he can’t. “What is it?”

“I have to go. I’m sorry. I have to get home before my ma wakes up.”

“You got time to take a shower with me?”

Eddie may not have time, but he gives himself time. Richie drags himself out of bed and runs a shower for them both, letting Eddie control the temperature. Eddie lets Richie wash his hair with citrus-scented hotel shampoo, lets Richie shower his lips and face in water-slippery kisses, and he wishes he could have this every morning, but he thinks that if real life was this good all the time, it wouldn’t be real life. At least, it wouldn’t be Eddie’s.

Eddie gets dressed after, clothes sticking to his damp skin, every button of his shirt another melancholy step toward going away. He pulls on his sweater vest and jacket and puts his aspirator back home in his pocket, and Richie walks him to the door, still in just a towel.

Richie puts his balled up Stanford shirt in Eddie’s hands, and Eddie looks up, confused. “Keep it,” Richie insists. “To remember me.”

“I wouldn’t forget you anyway,” Eddie says, but he takes it and tucks it into his pocket. “Thank you.”

“No problem, Spaghetti Man.” Richie leans down, and his smile melts into a kiss.

Richie’s hand comes up to comb through Eddie’s wet hair. Eddie hopes it’ll dry before he’s out in the cold for too long.

“Thought I told you not to call me that,” Eddie says, but he doesn’t really mind.

“You did.” Still grinning, Richie presses his forehead against Eddie’s, glasses digging into Eddie’s skin. “But you didn’t mean it. I know you.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely,” Richie says, and he kisses Eddie again. ”Wait a sec. Before you go.” Richie goes to the nightstand and scribbles something on the hotel notepad, then rushes back to hand it to Eddie. The slip of paper is printed with the hotel’s name and phone number, and Richie’s written his room number in ballpoint. _1087._ “I’m here ‘til tomorrow night,” he says. “Call if you want.”

Eddie pockets it. “Sorry I have to go.”

“It’s okay. Go ahead. Don’t get in trouble with your mom.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Wouldn’t want her to come after me or anything.”

“You really wouldn’t.” Eddie opens the door and kisses Richie one last time in the doorway. “Bye, Richie.”

“Bye, Eds.”

Eddie rides the elevator down by himself and steals away into the early morning. With a twenty minute walk back to Penn Station, a half hour train ride, and a fifteen minute drive home from the station in Great Neck, he should make it just on time.  


* * *

  
He does. He slips through the front door to a dark house, with Richie’s shirt balled up in his jacket pocket, and climbs the stairs with practiced, silent steps. When he closes his bedroom door behind him, he knows that it’s over.

Eddie stuffs Richie’s shirt and the slip of paper from the hotel into his desk drawer, then sheds his clothes on the way to his bed. When he slides under the covers, he clutches the flannel blankets close to his body.

“Oh, shit,” Eddie sobs. It feels like a dream, Richie’s touch worlds away, almost like Richie never existed at all. He knows deep down that he probably isn’t going to call. He doesn’t know for sure what he’ll do—and that makes him feel a little better, that unpredictability that’s nothing like him at all—but he’s already sinking back into that familiar isolation he couldn’t fully escape if he tried. He rolls over in bed, facing the ceiling, and wipes his tears on his sheets. _“Shit.”_

Eddie falls asleep for the third time that night, and when he finally sees Sonia, she doesn’t suspect a thing. Not that Eddie spent the night with a man. Not that he isn’t a virgin anymore, if she even cares. Eddie’s life goes back to normal, aside from how he sometimes wears Richie’s shirt to bed, and how he sometimes thinks about writing to KLAD, but never does.

And when Eddie gets that life-changing phone call fifteen years later, and he remembers Derry for the first time in decades, he conjures up the name Richie Tozier in a new context and nearly passes out. At least he understands, now, why he loved Richie even then. It was because he always had.

He wonders, standing in the big, dim atrium of his house in Great Neck with his phone in his hand, if Richie’s gotten married again, and if it stuck this time. He wonders if Richie remembers the night they spent together, and he gets the feeling that Richie does. When Eddie really thinks about it, he knows that Richie’s there waiting for him. And maybe, this time, it will last.

Eddie hangs up, heart pounding, and rushes upstairs to empty his medicine cabinet.

**Author's Note:**

> workshopped with Jacket
> 
> [hit me up on tumblr](http://geislieb.tumblr.com)


End file.
